Discrete Coons patches

We investigate surfaces which interpolate given boundary curves. We show th at the discrete bilinearly blended Coons patch can be defined as the soluti on of a linear system. With the goal of producing better shape than the Coo ns patch, this idea is generalized, resulting in a new method based on a bl end of variational principles. We show that no single blend of variational principles can produce "good" shape for all boundary curve geometries. We a lso discuss triangular Coons patches and point out the connections to the r ectangular case. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.